Trick or Treat!
Oct. 28th, 2012 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hinky_hippoFrom ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hawk_soaring I'll give this a shot :")
hawk_soaring I'll give this a shot :")In honor of All Hallow's Eve, I'm inviting trick-or-treaters to my 'door'. Comment "trick-or-treat" to this post and...well, you know the drill. Treats can be anything that strikes my fancy (pics of favorite actors or pairings, one sentence fics, graphics, a few words why I am glad to have you on my flist, etc)
The more "houses" to visit, the more fun it'll be, so go ahead, open your journal and help spread the fun!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-11-04 03:13 pm (UTC)I've been playing with it in Fireworks but can't get the file small enough for lj *pouts* Don't think I won't stop trying! Bwahahahahaha!
I'd love the vids if you ever get the chance - they sound like fun! Thanks! *smishes*
And, just for your efforts... Bratty MW being bratty ;)
no subject
Date: 2012-11-04 05:49 pm (UTC)So, anywayhow. Didja know that Fireworks Wizard sends the reduced files to Documents and not where the originals are? I did but kinda forgot. :") *smhs*
no subject
Date: 2012-11-05 03:32 am (UTC)Fireworks remains a closed box to me, Photoshop on the other hand is my bit--I, uh, mean I know a lit' somethin about that! ;) To corrupt pretty pictures of Logan in (when he lets me) & Michael the rest of the time! ;)
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 12:09 am (UTC)I can use both a wee bit but am such a n00b! It's mostly useless plinking and serendipity. LOL! This is the first thing I've managed to figure out how to place set frames on top of animation. I have a nifty 100 nifty PS tricks for morons book, how I wish they had one for Fireworks.
I really wanna make a few icons from those awesomsesauce .wmvs but couldn't figure out how to download, could only view. *chin wibbles*
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 01:01 am (UTC)*whistles and stares at the sky*
Actually, the really **ironic part** is that EVERY FREAKIN little thing I learned about art (& Photoshop) I learned off tuts & LJ, & loads AND loads of experimenting! *LOL!* Never had the patience for books (even those with titles like: "PS for the extremely mentally handicapped") ... my old modis operendi was if I saw a style of icon I liked, I'd stalk the artist's LJ til I found on tut on how they did it (most of the best LJ artists had tuts or at least had requests for them) & then I'd practice til I got it down. That's how I learned everything. So its highly bitchy of me now to be all like: "mheh, I'm too busy for you LJ, you wonderful trainer who taught me everything about PS when I was just a newbie ..." *hangs head*
Naughty C! No caramel corn haz you!
Actually now I feel like doubly guilty cause I have been promised for like 19,000 yrs now that I'd put up a master post of tuts from where I learned everything (at least, wtev is still live ... I have like a huge mem-ed list from back in the day, but I haven't looked at it in ages to see if those journals are still around) ...
... & yeah, rly, I should put up one or two tuts myself, even. Least I could do to give back to the LJ art community, considering *mumbles ... oughta kick your lazy ass C ... /mumble*
Honestly, color fills & "Soft Light/Color Burn" modes are the secret to my success but that was after lots of experimentation & learning what worked for me. I use lots of Curves & Levels too (BlindBeats, if she's still around, taught me how to do Curves & Selective Color & Surrexi used to have like the world's best tut on using Levels to lighten a fugly screencap!)
The BEST GEN PIECE OF ADVICE I can give though --& I do this with every art I create, regardless of what it is!-- is, if you're using a screencap, always always ALWAYS **ALWAYS** "Screen" your first layer. Screencaps are just naturally dark (dunno why, they iz trickzy like that) so setting your first layer to "Screen" lightens them enough to give you something to work with. When I see a dark piece of art that somebody made where I can barely see the pic used, I know they probably didn't (or didn't know how) to Screen their layer.
So, open the cap in Photoshop, right click, select "Duplicate Layer" (it'll ask where to do you want to put it, I just hit the Enter key) then from your Blend Modes, set that Layer to "Screen". Voila!! INSTANT LIGHTING FOR YOUR CAP!
I flatten it (at that point) & resize. That's my second valuable tip ... its no good to start coloring or fiddling with a cap if its like 14,000px big & eventually you're gonna make it 100x100. It's gonna look diff, the coloring, the cropping, how sharp the pic is, everything looks diff at 100px versus 1248px.
So get it closer to the size you want- for me, I size it down to about 300px if I know my eventual product will be in the 200px-100px range, & that gives me a far better idea of what my end dealio will look like. I don't crop tho, not til the end (after I'm done coloring & adding textures, wtev) cause I like being able to study the whole cap & decide what crop looks best.
Anyway, Screen Layer & Downsizing, those are the two I always do, every cap, every time (even picspams & promo art & stuff, which is a little bigger than icon dimensions, I still downsize before I color) ...
That's C's Tip of the Day ... tune in tomorrow to find out how to make a lampshade out of a used coffee filter ... ;)
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 01:12 am (UTC)(right after I beat his ass b/c he needs to learn to share HIS toyz too ...)
K, if you **right-click** those vid links, instead of just clicking on them, you should get an option drop-down list.
The option you want to choose is, "Save Target As" ... it'll ask you where you wantz to haz save the vid file to on your computer ... browse around, pick your fave folder (if its the one labelled Michael Sexx, I'm not judging ;) ) & click "Ok"!
Mission! Accomplished!
no subject
Date: 2012-11-05 02:09 am (UTC)It also makes my fangirly brain randomly *Disney!cartoon!happy* sunshiny & singsongy, like this dude:
K, girlfriend- I have no idea if the vids are still online where I found them (I'm siding towards "no" cuz I don't even remember where I found them & DA stuff disappears uber-fast) but I put um on my server so you can haz dl them here: (links'll dl in a new window for you so you won't leave the comment screen)
(God- do I WISH I could pull decent caps off these cause there are tons of adorable Michael moments on these vids ... damn you for being so tiny and lo-res, GRRRRR!)
Let me know when you've snagged & I'll take down the links. Saving my server bandwidth primarily for cap sets these days! ;) Somebody's gotta host all those yummy MW caps for fans-- its a rough job sure, but gee, I force myself to do it all, just for the fans! *modest throwaway gesture*
& good luck getting that gif sized down- mebbe Mo can help. I can haz ask her if you like. Animated gifs aren't my skill set so I have Mo make all of mine for me (plus she does a kickass job & I'm too lazy to learn how- I can pull nice caps for um tho, so that's my skill set. ;) ).
That to say, I'd have no idea where to even start with that. I stare at the multi-frames of animated gif broken down and go: "Yep. Okay. C is officially lost now." ;)
Me trying to make gifs =
Then I'm ->
(C's "MW goodies" toybox courtesy of Michael Cale (Jr.), her "Tech Baby" that is finally operational again, THANKYOUGODANDOFCOURSELOGAN!!!, as Max said & so brilliantly: "he's a mechanical extension of my soul, if there is such a thing!" ;) )
no subject
Date: 2012-11-05 03:02 am (UTC)WAHHHHHHHHHHHH! The links aren't working!!!! *sobs*
Try again? 0=)
no subject
Date: 2012-11-05 03:14 am (UTC)Ok girlfriend, links #2 (& I TESTED THIS TIME, *huffs*)